Flash fiction project: one dark story per day, all the way through October, each one based on one normal thing gone wrong. More of this year’s stories here. You can find last year’s stories here, or at Amazon as October Nights.

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Normal thing: Unexpected Friendships.

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GETTING OVER IT

Mom and me and Princess Cookie were riding on the bus together, not a school bus but but a fancy bus, the kind with soft blue velvet seats and even seatbelts. It wasn’t as brag-worthy as an airplane ride but I was still looking forward to telling the whole class. Of course Princess Cookie wouldn’t sit still. Sometimes she raced along the side of the road or along the tops of the power lines. Or she would take flying leaps from building to building. Sometimes she sat in the seat in front of me and twisted around to make faces. Sometimes she flew around the bus, making ghost noises that only I could hear: Wooooo! She cursed at them, too, and did naughty things under their clothes that they couldn’t even feel. She was kind of gross and mean and she wasn’t very nice but she was still my best friend.

When Mom went to the bathroom and the lady across the aisle leaned over and said, “That friend of yours is no good.” Then she settled back in her seat.

Princess Cookie came back but it wasn’t fun anymore. She was just another bully.